Sunday, April 24, 2011

Congo-Kinshasa: Kiss of Life for Pygmies

(source: allAfrica.com)
Bolenge — "Most of the houses in our villages are still made with small branches that we have collected, while our timber and our medicinal plants are taken by people who are enriching themselves elsewhere," said Ampiobo Amuri, a traditional pygmy chief.

"It's been several weeks now since I stopped listening to the requests of these people who come and bring us drink, give us used clothes, sometimes even salt, in exchange for our products," he said.

"I want our children to study," said Antoinette Ambulampo. "The animals and the trees have been taken ... When we arrive to work in the forests where someone has cut down the trees, we are hot. We work a lot for the people who come and court us."

IPS met Amuri and Ambulampo in the village of Bolenge, in the Equateur Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Marginalised minority

There are roughly 200,000 pygmies living in the forests of the Republic of congo, Cameroon, Gabon, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo - with smaller numbers as far east as Rwanda and Burundi, according to ethnologists Serge Bahuchet and Guy Philipart de Foy.

Across the Congo Basin, indigenous peoples are a marginalised minority. They often provide the workforce in the fields for others, exploited and sometimes paid in kind or with worthless scrip.

At the second International Forum of Indigenous Peoples, which took place from Mar. 16-18 at Ifondo in the Republic of Congo, Henri Ndjombo, that country's minister of forestry and sustainable development, acknowledged the suffering of indigenous peoples.

"We are going to have to come up with appropriate responses to indigenous peoples' problems for their survival, because they are up against a number of obstacles, notably, access to resources, which must be increasingly monitored. This is necessary in order for the development of alternative activities that allow this population to live better," he states.

There have been some successes in securing the rights of indigenous people in conjunction with conservation of the forest they traditionally depend on for a livelihood.

The international non-profit organisation The Forest Trust (TFT), based in Geneva, is part of a wider group whose work for the rights of pygmies Amuri views in a positive light. The TFT has announced the certification of sustainable environmental and humanitarian practices of an additional 571,000 hectares of forest managed by the Congolaise Industrielle des Bois (CIB), a logging company operating in the Congo basin.

TFT says this brings the total area of tropical forest under sustainable management in the Congo Basin to more than 5.3 million hectares.

The certification of the Loundoungou and Toukoulaka concessions, according to TFT, means that all of the forest regions under CIB's management have been certified by the independent standard-setting body, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a milestone in the protection of both the fragile environment of the forest and the livelihoods of local communities, especially semi-nomadic pygmies.

Certification alone not enough

But the lack of demand for sustainable wood and wood products (which command higher prices than other timber) could mean that the positive response of the industry to pressure from European and U.S. activists amounts to nothing, says TFT's executive director Scott Poynton.

"The consumers aren't there and the NGOs aren't pushing the sale of this certified wood. And without economic returns, the companies can't maintain these practices," he adds.

Robert Hunink of the CIB confirms that opportunities in the market are still lacking. "Nevertheless, the staff and management of the CIB are in support of the FSC process," he says. "The buyers will start to reward companies that have responded positively to the certification of their forestry operations."
Jerome Bokele, the first pygmy to be elected to the provincial legislature of Equateur Province, in the north-west of the DRC, said: "The certification of 571.000 hectares by the FSC is a good thing. But it's only an announcement. Thousands of logs are thrown into the Congo river - and often come from lawless exploitation of the tropical forests. More than 70 percent of the indigenous people in Africa are trapped in dire poverty..."

Odon Munsadi, an environmentalist in the DRC points out: "Environmental practices in this case involve the rational use of forests for their future existence. Bad practices lead to global warming and grassy plains."

"Certification can be a breath of oxygen for the indigenous people if there is rigorous monitoring and if they develop and come to the fore. If not, the theory will prevail," he warns.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Great Public Health News in the DR Congo

DR CONGO INTRODUCES NEW VACCINE

AGAINST ONE OF ITS LEADING CAUSES OF CHILD DEATH

Pneumococcal vaccine reaching one of Africa’s largest countries

KINSHASA, 4 April 2011 – In an effort to drastically improve the chances of children reaching their fifth birthday, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) today stepped up its immunization programme by including vaccines to combat pneumonia. Initially the expanded programme will be in two of the 11 provinces. Pneumonia is one of the biggest killers of children worldwide and is responsible for a quarter of all child deaths under five in DRC.

DRC First Lady Olive Lembe Kabila and Minister of Health Victor Makwenge Kaput joined parents and health workers in Kinshasa to witness the first child being immunized as part of the official introduction of pneumococcal vaccine into the national routine immunization programme.

On the same day in Paris, GAVI founding partner Bill Gates launched a European-wide awareness campaign to highlight the extraordinary life-saving opportunity that vaccines represent for donor countries.

Globally, pneumococcal disease, the most common and serious form of respiratory infections, kills over a million of people every year – including more than half a million children before their fifth birthday. It is the leading cause of pneumonia, which is the major cause of death among children aged below 5 years, contributing to 18 percent of under five deaths in developing countries.

“Today’s launch is an enormous moment for my country, where too many children die of this terrible disease,” said Mr Kaput. “Pneumonia causes suffering and death. Therefore we celebrate a wonderful day today. The global introduction of pneumococcal vaccination is a milestone in global health and will help us reduce child mortality.”

“The introduction of the pneumococcal vaccine and the systematic immunization of the children could save the life of 1 in 5 children dying from respiratory infectious diseases”, said Dr Léodégal Bazira, acting WHO Representative in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

With the second highest child mortality rates in world DRC faces major health challenges. A study conducted in 2004 by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) revealed that pneumonia killed at least 132,000 children under five in the country, making it the second biggest cause of death amongst under five children in the country after malaria. Only 42% of children suspected to have pneumonia are taken to an appropriate healthcare provider.

“With electricity, roads, and refrigerators in short supply, delivering vaccines to remote health centers in DRC is an enormous challenge,” said Pierrette Vu Thi, UNICEF Representative in DR Congo. “Together with its partners UNICEF is committed to ensure that all children in this country have the same access to this life-saving vaccine”.

As the world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF has been supporting vaccination efforts in DRC with supply, technical and financial support since 1963.

In the past five months, Nicaragua, Guyana, Yemen, Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Mali introduced the pneumococcal vaccines thanks to the support from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) which brings together governments, UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other key players in global health.

GAVI has committed to support the introduction of pneumococcal vaccines in 19 developing countries by 2012 and, if it gets sufficient funding from its donors, plans to roll them out to more than 40 countries by 2015.

“Vaccination is one of the most cost-effective public health investments a government can make and we are counting on our donors to continue their strong backing for our life-saving mission,” said Helen Evans, GAVI interim CEO.

GAVI needs an additional US$ 3.7 billion over the next five years to continue its support for immunization in the world’s poorest countries and introduce new and underused vaccines including the pneumococcal vaccine and the rotavirus vaccine which tackles diarrhoea – the second biggest killer of children under five.

The roll-out of the pneumococcal vaccines in countries such as DRC has been made possible through an innovative finance mechanism pioneered by GAVI called the Advance Market Commitment (AMC).

With US$ 1.5 billion from Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Russian Federation, Norway, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a commitment of US$ 1.3 billion from GAVI, the AMC allowed the acceleration of production capacity by the two manufacturers who currently produce the vaccines. This has contributed to ensuring that this new generation of pneumococcal vaccines are affordable in developing countries, as they are now available at a fraction of the price chaired in developed countries.

Distributed by the African Press Organization on behalf of GAVI Alliance.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

UN Airplane Crash in the Capital



Taken from AlJazeera (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/04/2011450474968861.html)

Thirty-two people have been killed and one person survived when a United Nations plane crashed in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a UN spokesperson has said.

"We can confirm only one survivor out of the 33 people on board the ... plane," Farhan Haq said.

The plane crashed on Monday while attempting to land at the airport serving the capital city.

It was one of the worst disasters ever involving UN transport. Twenty UN workers were listed as on board the flight.

The plane was carrying UN officials and peacekeepers travelling from the northeastern city of Kisangani to Kinshasa's N'Djili airport, according to a statement from the UN mission known as MONUSCO.

The world body earlier said both Congolese and foreign nationals were on board the plane.

The operator of the plane, Georgian flag carrier Airzena Georgian Airways, said the crew was Georgian.

There were strong winds blowing at the time of the crash.

A UN source in Kinshasa, who asked not to be named, told the Reuters news agency: "The plane landed heavily, broke into two and caught fire."

A Reuters correspondent at the airport said the plane was completely destroyed and the wreckage was lying at the end of the runway.

The UN has a fleet of more than a dozen planes in the country with which the mission transports its personnel, journalists and staff of international and local non-governmental organisations.